Joe Lombardi comes to Detroit after years of watching the Saints light up scoreboards. / Mark Humphrey, AP

by Dave Birkett, USA TODAY Sports

by Dave Birkett, USA TODAY Sports

The Detroit Lions have made one thing clear this offseason: They're all in on Matthew Stafford.

A week after hiring a head coach in Jim Caldwell who worked closely with Peyton Manning for 10 seasons, the Lions tabbed Joe Lombardi, the quarterbacks coach for Drew Brees the last five years, to be their next offensive coordinator.

ESPN first reported Lombardi's hire.

Lombardi, the grandson of Hall of Fame former Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, has never been a coordinator in the NFL before, but he worked closely with Brees in his most prolific seasons with the New Orleans Saints.

"Huge congratulations to Joe Lombardi," former Saints quarterback Chase Daniel tweeted this morning. "Coached me up for 4 years in Nola‚?¶really knows his stuff & will do great things in Detroit."

A tight end in college, Lombardi spent four seasons as the offensive coordinator at Mercyhurst before joining the Atlanta Falcons as a defensive assistant in 2006.

He left for New Orleans and an offensive assistant position a year later and was elevated to quarterbacks coach before the Saints' Super Bowl-winning season in 2009. Brees had the second-best passer rating of his career that year, 109.6, and has thrown for more than 5,100 yards the last three seasons.

Known for his football acumen and high energy, Lombardi will work closely with Stafford, who's coming off two down years after his own 5,000-yard passing season in 2011.

Stafford threw 19 interceptions this year and struggled down the stretch as the Lions lost six of their final seven games.

The Lions hired Caldwell to replace Jim Schwartz last week in part because of his success working with Manning in Indianapolis.

He spent seven seasons as quarterbacks coach for the Colts and three more as head coach, and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens last year after he was elevated from Joe Flacco's quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator.

Lions general manager Martin Mayhew said last week that Stafford's development is key to an organizational rebound, though he said Monday at the Senior Bowl that he doesn't believe Stafford's confidence needs to be rebuilt.

"I don't think his confidence has probably fallen very far," Mayhew said. "You think about it, Week 9, his numbers were outstanding. We were winning, we were playing really well. Didn't finish up the second half of the season the way that we expected to and things that we wanted to do, but there are a lot of moving pieces to that. It's not all on Matthew. So I've been in contact with him several times since the end of the season, and he sounds pretty confident to me."

And how much work needs to be done with Stafford's game?

"That's a good question," Mayhew said. "I think there certainly has to be some work done. I couldn't really quantify that."

Caldwell said Monday he was looking for a coordinator that was innovative and able to "implement and execute a variety of different schemes."

"One of the things we're trying to just make certain (is) that we have a guy that has a real good sense of system and just in terms of offensive football, application, installation of it," Caldwell said. "He's a good communicator. That's extremely important. And that he's a real good just in terms of teaching fundamentals. I think that's the basic rudiments of quality play on offensive football. So those things are important."

For now, it remains unclear who will call plays for the Lions next year.

Caldwell left open the possibility that he would do that during his introductory news conference last week.

"We're going to take a look and see exactly what we want to do in that particular area," Caldwell said. "Here's one thing you can guarantee, that I'm going to have, obviously, some input in that area. I'm going to be involved deeply in that area, and certainly with the quarterbacks as well."